Some of the most e-mailed, viewed and commented on stories on the Web, including word that police officers in Texas may have eaten cookies laced with LSD.

MIKE PESCA, host:

Welcome back to the Bryant Park Project from NPR News. We are online all the time at npr.org/bryantpark. We are collectors. We keep our collection in a Styrofoam seal, vacuum seal, carbonate sealed. It's all very sealed, because otherwise, it loses its value if you fray an edge. But every once in awhile we crack the carbonate, and poke the Styrofoam, and unzip the cellophane, and we let it all out. And we talk about the most-emailed, most-viewed...

PASHMAN: Because it actually is a postcard. Though, it is to J. R. R. Tolkien, not from him. A demolition man in Bournemouth, England, was chipping the fireplace out of the former home of the scribe and found this postcard written to Tolkien in about 1968, and he's going to auction it off. He's very excited. He checked with Tolkien's estate, and they said go for it. He's going to auction it off as a pair with the carved wooden fireplace with marble inlay, which is valued at 250,000 dollars, according to the guy auctioning it.

PESCA: That's a nice fireplace.

PATRICIA MCKINNEY: I'm sorry, a postcard to J. R. R. Tolkien...

PASHMAN: To Tolkien, yes.

MCKINNEY: And this guy thinks...

PESCA: I could write a postcard to Tolkien tomorrow.

PASHMAN: I think I'm going to write a postcard to George Washington.

PESCA: Yeah.

IAN CHILLAG: Did Tolkien try to throw it away, and throw it into the fire, and burn it? And then it flew up and that's how...

PASHMAN: It could be. The postcard is signed "Lin," which the man believes could be fellow fantasy author Lin Carter, who wrote "Tolkien: A Look behind the Lord of the Rings," published in 1969.

PESCA: Or it could be former NFL quarterback Lynn Dickey, in which - it could be anyone named Lynn.

PASHMAN: Well, this is L-I-N.

MCKINNEY: What does the postcard say? Do they tell you what's on it?

PASHMAN: There is one line of the postcard that says, I have been thinking of you a lot and hope everything has gone as well as could be expected in the most difficult circumstances.

MCKINNEY: Wow.

PESCA: And he loved it so much he tucked it behind his...

PASHMAN: Fireplace.

PESCA: Yes. Exactly.

MCKINNEY: I want that postcard. I'm paying money.

PASHMAN: Yeah. Well, 500 grand is what they're asking, Trish.

PESCA: I don't know, I mean, they were supposed to demolish the fireplace. Now, they're selling it off, and they got a postcard. It's very odd.

PASHMAN: Yeah.

PESCA: As is this story, one of the most-emailed on the San Francisco Chronicle website. "To drop pounds, write down everything you eat." This is a new study that has just come out, and it found that one of the best ways to fight being overweight and putting on the pounds is to just document everything. And then, I saw someone interviewed about this, she said, yeah, I could have had the muffin, but I knew I'd have to write it down, so I didn't have the muffin.

MCKINNEY: Wait. So, this is really, really important news for me, personally. So, if I just write down everything I eat, I magically lose weight, and I don't have to do any exercise?

CHILLAG: I don't know if this would work for me, though. I would be, like, ooh, I almost forgot that delicious bacon double cheeseburgers. Thank goodness I was looking at my notes from last week.

PESCA: And also Samuel Pepys, and Senator Graham, and other famous diarists, usually quite svelte. I have noticed that.

PASHMAN: Yeah. I wrote down my Pepys and graham crackers, but...

PESCA: Ian?

CHILLAG: Yeah. I have a most-popular from the Fort Worth Star-Telegram. This teenager attempted to deliver cookies laced with LSD to the Lake Worth Police Department. He said they came from Mothers Against Drunk Driving. So, they arrested him. They had been tipped off by an officer at the Blue Mound Police Department who had also got a delivery, went to taste the cookie, and it smelled of marijuana. So, apparently, when they went to arrest this kid, he had a list of 25 police departments, and 12 of them had been checked off. So, they're sort of scrambling to figure out where these cookies went.

PESCA: Yes.

CHILLAG: The Saginaw Police Department, they said whenever they get unsolicited food items, they throw them away.

PESCA: Smart.

CHILLAG: As for Fort Worth, they got a basket - they can't test the cookies for LCD because they've all been eaten by police officers.

PESCA: And police dogs, who now believe that they are the Lizard King.

PASHMAN: Yeah. Ian, I didn't hear a word you just said, but I'd like to interrupt this broadcast to send a special shout-out to BPP listener Christian Phillips, who sent us an amazing basket of cookies. Thanks, Christian. I thought it was especially nice of him to have the cookies delivered by a giraffe that was singing the entire score of the "H.M.S. Pinafore."

(Soundbite of laughter)

PESCA: It was sad when the giraffe started bleeding.

(Soundbite of laughter)

PASHMAN: Yeah.

PESCA: Mark, are you here with some news?

MARK GARRISON: I am.

PESCA: Some funny cookies?

GARRISON: I have a most-emailed from the BBC News, another reason for someone to go on that diary diet that we were talking about earlier. This new study finds out that being too fat can reduce your chance of fertility. It's not because it's harder to find a partner, but it's basically the actual fat can damage the sperm. You know, you're going to have poorer quality because what they think is that the, well, you know, the housing of...

PESCA: Say it in an English accent like the BBC did, you can say anything.

(Soundbite of laughter)

GARRISON: (As BBC Reporter) All right, perfect. If the fat around the testicles causes him to get too hot, and it makes your sperm weaker, and there's less of it.

PESCA: Very good.

GARRISON: So, that is the problem and other things that can affect that, by the way are, smoking and high alcohol use. They controlled for all of that, but it's another reason to, you know, think about writing down what you eat and eating less of what you write down.

PESCA: Thank you, very positive. Tricia, would you like to end with a Google Trend?

MCKINNEY: I would. Number one on Google Trends this morning are the words, "lively Google." So, this is a thing you may start seeing everywhere. It's this new thing Google launched yesterday. It's a virtual experience, and there are these little rooms, and you can have little avatars in little rooms. Now, it's not like Second Life. You don't go to a destination to experience this. They want this to be embedded in your Facebook, your MySpace page, like, you're going to see these little rooms.

PESCA: Your medulla oblongata.

MCKINNEY: I guess. I don't know. I went to Google Lively. I had to Google it to find out where it was, to be honest, and that might be why it's number one, and I saw all these little rooms. And I tried to click on a few, there were rooms that - well, there were all kinds of rooms you might expect to find on the Internet, let me just say that. They have different themes, let's just say, but I couldn't make anything work, so I don't know. I got to spend a little more time figuring it out, but other people have written articles saying that they've got around just fine.

PESCA: You know what would help? I think some of Christian Peterson's cookies.

MCKINNEY: I might actually need that to make this work.

PESCA: Is that his name?

CHILLAG: Phillips.

PESCA: Christian Phillips.

CHILLAG: Yeah.

PESCA: Thanks.

MCKINNEY: So, lively.

PESCA: All right. Thanks everyone. That is your Most. These stories and more at our website, npr.org/bryantpark.

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